Do You Believe In God?

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Do you believe in God?

Enlightened Souls Discourse #1

by Br. Blackthorn

People often ask "Why do you believe in God?" and I thought that I should make this question the focus of my first discourse.

This discourse will be available in the Enlightened Souls Library once it's construction is complete.

What follows is nothing more then belief. It is part of my description and beliefs about God, the universe, and man. It is not intended to be held as "truth". It is just my truth as it stands upon writing this. As always I reserve the right to change my thoughts, ideas, and beliefs.

eyeofgod.jpg

I believe in one Creator.

That the beginning was a void or chaos (in its oldest sense).

I believe we are all emanations of God the Creator.

The "big bang" generally refers to the idea that the universe has expanded from a primordial hot and dense initial condition at some time in the past, and continues to expand to this day.

At this time all matter was condensed into one dense and perfect ball of mass. Something caused the mass (which was perfect) to "explode" and expand.

I believe that the "big bang" was The Almighty creating the universe. Whether it was out of boredom, curiosity, Love, and/or a combination of all three. I cannot and do not know.

The universe is constantly expanding and growing. This slow expansion is considered proof of the "big bang". The expansion can theoretically be traced back to a single source. Similar in essence to the theory of evolution and how all evolution can be traced back to a single living cell.

The universe and everything in it is composed of exactly the same matter.

Matter cannot be destroyed. It's state may alter or it's composition change but regardless we still have as much matter as in the beginning. All the matter in the known universe can be traced back to a single source or beginning.

We don't even know if the universe has an end or if it really is infinite.

Imagine what a being composed of the entire universe could be.

When God created all that is and all that will be, The Creator only had one thing from which he could create.

Himself.

All of life on this earth began in one cell. How this cell became a living single cell organism is unknown. The chances of it randomly happening are nothing short of miraculous. For all the proper elements needed and for them to be present at exactly the proper time for it to happen. I think it's all just too much for it to be an accident.

I believe it was God.

Darwin knew of this single cell yet he did not know what a cell really was. He had an idea and a concept of what a cell was. However if you took what darwin knew of what a cell was and compare it to a duracell battery. Then you compare what we know of cells and what goes on inside a single cell. Our cell knowledge would be a nuclear reactor or possibly cold fusion.

I look at the encoding of DNA. Something has to code it. Computer code doesn't write itself, there is a programmer. Somewhere there is a designer and programmer for all the functions of a cell and the genetic code. A source of information for all Life.

I believe this source of information is The Almighty. I believe creation is guided.

I believe that the creator made us essentially in "His Image". That he gave us the ability to reason, choose our fate, and make our own decisions. That he gave us the free will to shape our own lives and through them the world. To be a part of Him but also distinct and free.

I also believe he gave us the ability to create and imagine.

I think that is what truly sets us apart from other animals. Our imagination and the ability to create far beyond any other living species on this planet. We can make whole different worlds, myths, and legends. All with a stroke of a pen or brush. We can design then build skyscrapers and create works of art and beauty. We have the ability to build a nuke or an incubation chamber for a premature infant.

Lao tzu expressed it quite eloquently in the Tao te ching.

The Tao that can be experienced is not true;

The world that can be constructed is not real.

The Tao manifests all that happens and may happen;

The world represents all that exists and may exist.

To experience without abstraction is to sense the world;

To experience with abstraction is to know the world.

These two experiences are indistinguishable;

Their construction differs but their effect is the same.

Beyond the gate of experience flows the Tao,

Which is ever greater and more subtle than the world.

I don't think God is confined to any one book. I don't believe the Creator could be limited in such a way. I think God already wrote his book with creation. All we have to do is study nature, ourselves, and the universe to read it.

God is in all of creation.

God is in every tree, every stone, and most importantly in every one of us.

Yeshua said,

"I am the light that is over all things. I am all: from me all came forth, and to me all attained.

Split a piece of wood; I am there.

Lift up the stone, and you will find me there."

This is why I believe in the Creator and that we are all equal in the eyes of God.

Your mileage may vary.

We are one,

Br. Blackthorn

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Pete Priceless Being

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Thanks Hex.

Thanks Blackthorn.

I believe in God but not in the sense that is expressed in the Bible but in the sense of the spiritual. I would agree that God created material but that would in my opinion be only a minimal part of what I believe to be God. I believe there is that which we see but also that which we do not in the spiritual realm. God for me is the source of both.

In the material world we can always find other reasons to justify things. For example The genetical code of DNA can be described as a random event that took millions of years before it wrote the formulae for us. Darwin pointed out that evolution is driven by a competition for survival but it can also be noted that with evolving we have become not only advanced in the race for life in a material sense but also we have begun to turn to that which is the spiritual. I believe God is the spiritual force behind both the creation of the material and also the spiritual.

I have found no better way to describe our existence and relationship to God then what one lady described in her near death experience. She saw a light and people in spiritual form standing in front of the light. The light appeared to feed and enrich all. She ask if the light was God and she was told no. She was told it is just the breath of God. That is how I see the experiece we have to both the spiritual and sometimes in the material world. We are all standing in the breath of God (IMO).

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Rev.John Honorable Friend

Rev.John

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To answer the question - yes, I do. He told me to.

;)

I too believe in a divine intelligence behind creation. The specifics are murky, I guess we'll all find out one day.

Until then I'll just enjoy the great company of fellow seekers such as you guys!

Amen!

Peace

Rev.John

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Reverend Daniel Esteemed Friend

Reverend Daniel

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Do you believe in God?

Enlightened Souls Discourse #1

by Br. Blackthorn

People often ask "Why do you believe in God?" and I thought that I should make this question the focus of my first discourse.

This discourse will be available in the Enlightened Souls Library once it's construction is complete.

What follows is nothing more then belief. It is part of my description and beliefs about God, the universe, and man. It is not intended to be held as "truth". It is just my truth as it stands upon writing this. As always I reserve the right to change my thoughts, ideas, and beliefs.

eyeofgod.jpg

I believe in one Creator.

That the beginning was a void or chaos (in its oldest sense).

I believe we are all emanations of God the Creator.

The "big bang" generally refers to the idea that the universe has expanded from a primordial hot and dense initial condition at some time in the past, and continues to expand to this day.

At this time all matter was condensed into one dense and perfect ball of mass. Something caused the mass (which was perfect) to "explode" and expand.

I believe that the "big bang" was The Almighty creating the universe. Whether it was out of boredom, curiosity, Love, and/or a combination of all three. I cannot and do not know.

The universe is constantly expanding and growing. This slow expansion is considered proof of the "big bang". The expansion can theoretically be traced back to a single source. Similar in essence to the theory of evolution and how all evolution can be traced back to a single living cell.

The universe and everything in it is composed of exactly the same matter.

Matter cannot be destroyed. It's state may alter or it's composition change but regardless we still have as much matter as in the beginning. All the matter in the known universe can be traced back to a single source or beginning.

We don't even know if the universe has an end or if it really is infinite.

Imagine what a being composed of the entire universe could be.

When God created all that is and all that will be, The Creator only had one thing from which he could create.

Himself.

All of life on this earth began in one cell. How this cell became a living single cell organism is unknown. The chances of it randomly happening are nothing short of miraculous. For all the proper elements needed and for them to be present at exactly the proper time for it to happen. I think it's all just too much for it to be an accident.

I believe it was God.

Darwin knew of this single cell yet he did not know what a cell really was. He had an idea and a concept of what a cell was. However if you took what darwin knew of what a cell was and compare it to a duracell battery. Then you compare what we know of cells and what goes on inside a single cell. Our cell knowledge would be a nuclear reactor or possibly cold fusion.

I look at the encoding of DNA. Something has to code it. Computer code doesn't write itself, there is a programmer. Somewhere there is a designer and programmer for all the functions of a cell and the genetic code. A source of information for all Life.

I believe this source of information is The Almighty. I believe creation is guided.

I believe that the creator made us essentially in "His Image". That he gave us the ability to reason, choose our fate, and make our own decisions. That he gave us the free will to shape our own lives and through them the world. To be a part of Him but also distinct and free.

I also believe he gave us the ability to create and imagine.

I think that is what truly sets us apart from other animals. Our imagination and the ability to create far beyond any other living species on this planet. We can make whole different worlds, myths, and legends. All with a stroke of a pen or brush. We can design then build skyscrapers and create works of art and beauty. We have the ability to build a nuke or an incubation chamber for a premature infant.

Lao tzu expressed it quite eloquently in the Tao te ching.

The Tao that can be experienced is not true;

The world that can be constructed is not real.

The Tao manifests all that happens and may happen;

The world represents all that exists and may exist.

To experience without abstraction is to sense the world;

To experience with abstraction is to know the world.

These two experiences are indistinguishable;

Their construction differs but their effect is the same.

Beyond the gate of experience flows the Tao,

Which is ever greater and more subtle than the world.

I don't think God is confined to any one book. I don't believe the Creator could be limited in such a way. I think God already wrote his book with creation. All we have to do is study nature, ourselves, and the universe to read it.

God is in all of creation.

God is in every tree, every stone, and most importantly in every one of us.

Yeshua said,

"I am the light that is over all things. I am all: from me all came forth, and to me all attained.

Split a piece of wood; I am there.

Lift up the stone, and you will find me there."

This is why I believe in the Creator and that we are all equal in the eyes of God.

Your mileage may vary.

We are one,

Br. Blackthorn

Sounds like a wonderful interpretation to me. Nicely done! :thumbu:

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Dr Free New Friend

Dr Free

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Hi, Blackthorn,

You have presented an intriguing statement of belief, a worthwhile entry into this forum. But it is a complex statement, parts of which I agree with, and parts I am much less certain of. So, following my analytic approach, I would like to examine its parts in much more detail.

Do you believe in God?
Yes, subject to refinement in my closing paragraph, though many would claim that what I call God is not the true God.
What follows is nothing more then belief. It is part of my description and beliefs about God, the universe, and man. It is not intended to be held as "truth". It is just my truth as it stands upon writing this. As always I reserve the right to change my thoughts, ideas, and beliefs.
I belong to a Unitarian Universalist Church. For a long time time I have realized that I am not a Unitarian in the original sense of there being a single divine person, as opposed to a trinitarian, who believed that was was three persons (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) in one God. My resistance to Unitarianism, and to monotheism in general, is not so much that I believe in multiple gods, but that the concept of the divine seems too ill-defined to know how to count gods.

But when it comes to truth, I am a unitarian: there is one truth, one reality, against which each of our beliefs can be assessed. Truth is not like taste, where what is good to you and what is good to me can differ without any conflict. When you say you believe something, you are making a claim about my universe, a claim that I must either reconcile with my other beliefs or reject. When we disagree about a matter of belief, at least one of us is mistaken. Now that doesn't mean that any particular case we can always tell who is wrong, and it may turn out that given the evidence currently available we must respectfully agree to disagree.

I believe in one Creator.

That the beginning was a void or chaos (in its oldest sense).

I believe we are all emanations of God the Creator.

The "big bang" generally refers to the idea that the universe has expanded from a primordial hot and dense initial condition at some time in the past, and continues to expand to this day.

You characterize the relationship between God and us as one of creator and created, as distinct and separate things.

I on the on other hand think of us as part of God. God is the whole of which we are (hopefully contributing) parts. The universe is not God's creation, it is God, Godself. The word for this belief is panentheism. (See for example the book In Whom We Live and Move and Have Our Being, edited by Philip Clayton and Arthur Peacocke.)

When God created all that is and all that will be, The Creator only had one thing from which he could create. Himself.
And God had only one thing to create: Godself. That is, God is constantly creating God's next self, God's future self.
All of life on this earth began in one cell. How this cell became a living single cell organism is unknown.
This is not accurate to evolutionary theory. Chemical evolution long predated cellular evolution, though it was not strictly Darwinian. (For an excellent and readable discussion of the standard evolutionary model, see Richard Dawkin's The Ancestor's Tale.)
The chances of it randomly happening are nothing short of miraculous. For all the proper elements needed and for them to be present at exactly the proper time for it to happen. I think it's all just too much for it to be an accident.

I believe it was God.

Darwin knew of this single cell yet he did not know what a cell really was. He had an idea and a concept of what a cell was. However if you took what darwin knew of what a cell was and compare it to a duracell battery. Then you compare what we know of cells and what goes on inside a single cell. Our cell knowledge would be a nuclear reactor or possibly cold fusion.

It is a mistake to think of the individual steps of evolution as "random" or "accidental". Each is at least partly explicable in terms of chemical and biochemical principles. Many of these steps can be and have been replicated in the laboratory.

However, I do agree that there remain some significant unknowns. One kind of transformation that cannot yet be readily explained by the current evolutionary model are level-shifts, those puzzling transitions from complex interactions at one level of existence to integrated objects at a "higher" level. Examples:

  • From Quarks to Particles. From the known laws of behavior of quarks by themselves, we cannot explain or predict the laws of behavior of subatomic particles, i.e., electrons, protons, neutrons, etc.
  • From Particles to Atoms. From the known laws of behavior of subatomic particles by themselves, we cannot explain or predict the laws of behavior of atoms, i.e., the 100 or so elements in the periodic table.
  • From Atoms to Molecules. From the known laws of behavior of the elements by themselves, we cannot readily explain or predict the laws of behavior of molecules, i.e., carbon dioxide, phosphates, etc.
  • From Molecules to Active Molecules. From the known laws of behavior of the molecules by themselves, we cannot readily explain or predict the laws of behavior of active molecules, i.e., molecules like proteins that actually change their configuration in the presence of other molecules.
  • From Active Molecules to Cells. From the known laws of behavior of the active molecules by themselves, we cannot readily explain or predict the laws of behavior of biological cells and cell-like organisms such as viruses. In particular it is difficult to understand based only on what we know about active molecules, how teams of those molecules could come to exhibit the properties of self-preservation and self-replication that are the foundation of Darwinian evolution.
  • From Cells to Multicellular Organisms. From the known laws of behavior of cells by themselves, we cannot readily explain or predict the laws of behavior of multicellular organisms such as worms and people. In particular it is difficult to understand based only on what we know about cells, how teams of those cells could organize themselves to hand over the means self-preservation and self-replication to the team as an integrated whole.
  • From Multicellular Organisms to Conscious Organisms. At some point in the evolution of our world (i.e., God), organisms emerged with the power of choice and consciousness emerged. The behavior of earlier ("lower") organisms was algorithmic and stochastic; that is, what they did was based on deterministic laws, and their survival was a matter of chance. Simple animals and all plants depend on this same survival strategy. Complex animals (including at least fish, reptiles, dinosaurs/birds, mammals) discovered a new strategy. For them evolutionary advantage was conferred on organisms that were able to perceive and make choices about their own behavior based on what they perceived about the behavior of organisms at roughly their own level of complexity. That is, they could perceive things that might be food, mates or threats, and they could select behaviors based on the presence of those things and what they might possible do. That such a transformation has taken place at all is not recognized by many scientists; none can explain it based only on the laws of behavior of "lower" organisms.
  • From Multicellular Organisms to God. From the known laws of behavior of multicellular organisms by themselves, we cannot readily explain or predict the laws of behavior of whole worlds composed of those organisms. In particular, although we can at least conceive that the recently formed network of computers and people is analogous to a brain, it is difficult to understand based only on what we know about people and computers, how such a brain could emerge as sentient being. We may agree with Lovelock and Margolis that Gaia is a living being; we cannot yet conceive the form its consciousness might take.

Each of these steps reveals a hole in our understanding. Some people react to such holes by concluding that the reveal the hand of God. Others (and I count myself among them) conclude that these gaps are simply things we don't and may never know, but that it is a logical error to argue that since we don't know how it happened, it must have been God's action, therefore we do know how it happened.

I would note that for a creationist to take consolation in what science cannot currently explain, is to put their belief in a precarious position. Science has made a habit of finding evolutionary explanations of every claimed example of what God "must" have done. (See Finding Darwin's God, a delightful book by Kenneth Miller, an evolutionary biologist who happens to be a committed Christian.)

I look at the encoding of DNA. Something has to code it. Computer code doesn't write itself, there is a programmer. Somewhere there is a designer and programmer for all the functions of a cell and the genetic code. A source of information for all Life.

I believe this source of information is The Almighty. I believe creation is guided.

This is a red herring. There is an interesting similarity between DNA and computer code. But the two are not the same. Evolutionary theory offers a compelling explanation of how slight changes in the code yield evolution.
I believe that the creator made us essentially in "His Image". That he gave us the ability to reason, choose our fate, and make our own decisions. That he gave us the free will to shape our own lives and through them the world. To be a part of Him but also distinct and free.

I also believe he gave us the ability to create and imagine.

With this I fully agree. And the consequences of this recognition are profound, as I said in my post in the thread When There is No God.
I think that is what truly sets us apart from other animals. Our imagination and the ability to create far beyond any other living species on this planet. We can make whole different worlds, myths, and legends. All with a stroke of a pen or brush. We can design then build skyscrapers and create works of art and beauty. We have the ability to build a nuke or an incubation chamber for a premature infant.
That we have the ability to choose among alternatives significantly more various than other animals is clear. But that is a difference in degree, not kind. (See my earlier remarks about consciousness.)
Lao tzu expressed it quite eloquently in the Tao te ching.

The Tao that can be experienced is not true;

The world that can be constructed is not real.

The Tao manifests all that happens and may happen;

The world represents all that exists and may exist.

To experience without abstraction is to sense the world;

To experience with abstraction is to know the world.

These two experiences are indistinguishable;

Their construction differs but their effect is the same.

Beyond the gate of experience flows the Tao,

Which is ever greater and more subtle than the world.

This is a beautiful and evocative poem. I'm not sure what we learn from it, except to echo Hamlet's observation that there is more to the world (God) than is dreamt of in any of our philosophies.
I don't think God is confined to any one book. I don't believe the Creator could be limited in such a way. I think God already wrote his book with creation. All we have to do is study nature, ourselves, and the universe to read it.
I agree. People who zip God up in their little black book, put him in their pockets, and think they know their God, have much too small a vision of God.
God is in all of creation.

God is in every tree, every stone, and most importantly in every one of us.

Yeshua said,

"I am the light that is over all things. I am all: from me all came forth, and to me all attained.

Split a piece of wood; I am there.

Lift up the stone, and you will find me there."

Yes, God and Creation are one.

I should also say that I do not believe in God. I have faith in God. I choose to act as though the world is alive and conscious and in need of my help to restore and maintain its health. For the world, i.e., God, is ill, both physically and spiritually. God's health depends, in part, on my choices. I choose to act, as a matter of faith, in ways that will promote the health of the world. In part, that choice is rational self-interest: I am safer in a healthy world than an unhealthy world. But also in part I make this choice simply because it is the right thing to do. It is my duty and responsibility to God, the whole of which I am a part.

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Cornelius Priceless Being

Cornelius

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Hi, Blackthorn,

You have presented an intriguing statement of belief, a worthwhile entry into this forum. But it is a complex statement, parts of which I agree with, and parts I am much less certain of. So, following my analytic approach, I would like to examine its parts in much more detail.Yes, subject to refinement in my closing paragraph, though many would claim that what I call God is not the true God.

Hi Free :)
I belong to a Unitarian Universalist Church. For a long time time I have realized that I am not a Unitarian in the original sense of there being a single divine person, as opposed to a trinitarian, who believed that was was three persons (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) in one God. My resistance to Unitarianism, and to monotheism in general, is not so much that I believe in multiple gods, but that the concept of the divine seems too ill-defined to know how to count gods.

I believe in One God. The first cause. This is my belief. Everyone else is free to believe as they wish on the matter imho.

I think that you may have taken this discourse in a more dogmatic fashion then it was intended. These are just my thoughts, theorys, and ideas on the subject of God. While I have my personal beliefs, I also believe that God cannot be easily defined and that the truth of the matter cannot be proven. It to me is in the realm of belief and a matter of faith. Forget what I wrote as being definitive and consider it as merely speculative.

I try not to define and I really don't like to set anything in stone. I use my God given reason and own experiences for my conclusions. I am not arrogant enough to believe that I have the one truth. I am humble enough to recognize that the only truth I hold is my own.

What do I believe?

I believe in one God, The Creator.

That God gave me reason and rational thought

That all of creation is his divine word.

I believe in "Do that which is right"

As for my soul I believe that Thomas Paine said it as well as I ever could.

I trouble not myself about the manner of future existence. I content myself with believing, even to positive conviction, that the power that gave me existence is able to continue it, in any form and manner he pleases, either with or without this body; and it appears more probable to me that I shall continue to exist hereafter than that I should have had existence, as I now have, before that existence began.

—Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason

Other then that to me its all speculation, study, and theory. All of it is under the umbrella of belief and I do not confuse belief and personal conviction with having "the truth" or facts.

But when it comes to truth, I am a unitarian: there is one truth, one reality, against which each of our beliefs can be assessed.
The truth is in the eye of the beholder imo. Until I can prove for a fact that I hold "the truth" I lay no claim to it.

Please tell me more about this though and your view on it.

When you say you believe something, you are making a claim about my universe, a claim that I must either reconcile with my other beliefs or reject.
When I say I believe something I am making a claim about my personal beliefs and not your universe. Your path is not mine.
When we disagree about a matter of belief, at least one of us is mistaken. Now that doesn't mean that any particular case we can always tell who is wrong, and it may turn out that given the evidence currently available we must respectfully agree to disagree.
Or both of us. Sorry but imo its not always a case of either you're right or you're wrong.

I am all for respectfully agreeing to disagree. I don't honestly see a need to disagree in the first place however. Live and let live.

You characterize the relationship between God and us as one of creator and created, as distinct and separate things.
Distinct yes. Separate? not really.
I on the on other hand think of us as part of God. God is the whole of which we are (hopefully contributing) parts. The universe is not God's creation, it is God, Godself. The word for this belief is panentheism. (See for example the book In Whom We Live and Move and Have Our Being, edited by Philip Clayton and Arthur Peacocke.)

I am familiar with panentheism. I share a similar belief called Pan-Deism.

Although I simply refer to myself as a Deist.

Many labels can and do describe my beliefs. I feel no need to go beyond that.

And God had only one thing to create: Godself. That is, God is constantly creating God's next self, God's future self.
Interesting concept. I'll have to look into it more sometime. unless you would like to expand upon it.
This is not accurate to evolutionary theory. Chemical evolution long predated cellular evolution, though it was not strictly Darwinian. (For an excellent and readable discussion of the standard evolutionary model, see Richard Dawkin's The Ancestor's Tale.)
Sorry I don't like Dawkins. IMO he is arrogant and out to crush others beliefs because he is blinded by his own faith which he views as absolute and undeniable truth. He is not an atheist but a crusading antitheist.

I believe in guided evolution. That may make me ignorant or stupid in others eyes but I don't really care if others think so.

It is a mistake to think of the individual steps of evolution as "random" or "accidental". Each is at least partly explicable in terms of chemical and biochemical principles. Many of these steps can be and have been replicated in the laboratory.

Who set up these principles? Why do these principles exist? Why are they not random or accidental? How did they naturally occur outside of a controlled condition such as a lab?

Many more questions where these came from. Until I get sufficient answers and solid proof I'll believe as I wish.

However, I do agree that there remain some significant unknowns. One kind of transformation that cannot yet be readily explained by the current evolutionary model are level-shifts, those puzzling transitions from complex interactions at one level of existence to integrated objects at a "higher" level.
Thank you for the list :)
Each of these steps reveals a hole in our understanding. Some people react to such holes by concluding that the reveal the hand of God. Others (and I count myself among them) conclude that these gaps are simply things we don't and may never know, but that it is a logical error to argue that since we don't know how it happened, it must have been God's action, therefore we do know how it happened.
I don't make that argument at all.

I believe it was/is God guiding creation and evolution. This is a personal belief. Not to be confused with fact or an argument merely my own conclusion. There is a difference. Although some have trouble seeing it.

I would note that for a creationist to take consolation in what science cannot currently explain, is to put their belief in a precarious position. Science has made a habit of finding evolutionary explanations of every claimed example of what God "must" have done. (See Finding Darwin's God, a delightful book by Kenneth Miller, an evolutionary biologist who happens to be a committed Christian.)

I don't take consolation in any such thing. Like I said all this is speculation nothing more. I don't disbelieve science or evolution. I do however question it like I do with everything else.

Also I am not a creationist. That label is taken and it usually refers to a person who believes the earth is 6,000 years old and we are descended from adam and eve.

This is a red herring. There is an interesting similarity between DNA and computer code. But the two are not the same. Evolutionary theory offers a compelling explanation of how slight changes in the code yield evolution.

It is not a red herring it was used as a metaphor.

Edited by Blackthorn
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Cornelius Priceless Being

Cornelius

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With this I fully agree. And the consequences of this recognition are profound, as I said in my post in the thread When There is No God.
Nice post. Glad we agree. I see that we do share some similar views.
This is a beautiful and evocative poem. I'm not sure what we learn from it, except to echo Hamlet's observation that there is more to the world (God) than is dreamt of in any of our philosophies.

I have learned from it. I shared it in hopes that others would too. Everyone is free to draw their own conclusions of course.

I agree. People who zip God up in their little black book, put him in their pockets, and think they know their God, have much too small a vision of God.

In writing this I believe that I have narrowed my own vision of God. Which is why I have not attached myself to it. I consider it and my beliefs a constant work in progress. I just thought I would share it in hopes to inspire others. Beyond those things I listed above I hold too no firm beliefs. I am willing to keep an open mind and change it if need be. I have done so and will again. I just try not to limit myself or others in the process.

Yes, God and Creation are one.

I should also say that I do not believe in God. I have faith in God. I choose to act as though the world is alive and conscious and in need of my help to restore and maintain its health. For the world, i.e., God, is ill, both physically and spiritually. God's health depends, in part, on my choices. I choose to act, as a matter of faith, in ways that will promote the health of the world. In part, that choice is rational self-interest: I am safer in a healthy world than an unhealthy world. But also in part I make this choice simply because it is the right thing to do. It is my duty and responsibility to God, the whole of which I am a part.

That is a beautiful belief Free. Do that which is right :)

Unfortunately I won't be able to finish this lively discussion with you. I am losing my home internet for a while due to my plant closing and being laid off for a third time this year. I'll be on periodically and keep in touch :)

Edited by Blackthorn
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